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“How is she? I heard from Sam she was doing better.”
“She is.” April didn’t care to talk about her foster family around Jack, so she smiled brightly, promising to fill Marjorie in when they met for lunch.
“I’ll see if the sheriff is free,” Marjorie said, hurrying through the open door.
April eyed Jack. “You go first.”
For a moment, she thought she saw amusement in his eyes. “Afraid to say something in front of me? I’m not here to report Maraville’s news.”
“What I have to say doesn’t concern anyone but me.”
“You’re looking for help locating your parents,” he said.
“Lucky guess. Didn’t you suggest I try the sheriff?”
Marjorie came out of Sam’s office.
“He’s free. Come on in.”
Neither April nor Jack moved.
“After you,” she said.
“You go first,” he countered. “I’m here to help look for Jo, so I expect to be a while.”
That caught her by surprise. So he’d help out Eliza and Cade, but not her. Fine, she didn’t need his help!
Lifting her chin, she headed into the sheriff’s office, aware that Jack Palmer followed right behind her.
Sam glanced at April then Jack. “You two working together?” he asked.
“No,” April said quickly, frowning over her shoulder at Jack. She looked at Sam and smiled. “I was hoping to see you alone. But some people don’t seem to know when they’re barging in.”
Jack leaned against the door frame and said nothing.
“What can I do for you?” Sam asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“I’m hoping you can help me in a search of my own—for my birth parents.”
“Have a seat.”
Sam waited until April sat down before resuming his seat. He flicked another glance at Jack, who had moved beside one of the file cabinets, leaning against it so he could see April better.
“It’s personal,” she said, glaring at Jack.
“Which means she doesn’t want me here,” Jack explained.
“If you don’t mind, it is personal,” April insisted, wishing she could ignore the man. Or that Sam would kick him out.
“I’ll do what I can, but we don’t conduct family searches if no crimes have been committed,” Sam said slowly. “What do you have to go on?”
“Just my birth date. It’s from a delayed birth certificate—one I got when I first applied for a passport. No parents’ names, just Jane and John Doe.”
“The date may not be accurate,” Jack murmured.
“What?” April swung around. “You think that’s not my birth date?”
“If you were abandoned, it’s likely no one knew your birth date. They just estimated how old you were and assigned you the closest date.”
She blinked. She’d never thought of that. So even her birth date could be a dead end.
“Seems to me a hotshot like you could handle this before lunch,” Sam said to Jack. He looked at April. “You might try Social Services. They have the records of your particular case.”
The phone on the desk rang. Sam picked it up. From the one-sided conversation, April knew he had to go somewhere—fast. He stood even as he was talking, and reached for his hat on the hatrack behind him.
“Sorry, I have to leave,” he said as soon as he hung up. “Jack, take care of April, will you? And here’s a copy of all I have on Jo.” He thrust a slim folder at Jack. In a second he was gone.
April could hear him give rapid instructions to Marjorie as he left. A moment later there was only silence.
JACK TOSSED the folder on the desk. The slap it made startled April. Rising, she turned to the door.
“All right, I’ll see what I can do to get you started,” he said. It was clear the news about her birth date had hit her hard.
She studied him for a moment. Jack could tell she didn’t like what she saw. He’d been acting like an ass and wouldn’t blame her if she wanted nothing to do with him. But he was a good bet for finding information about her past. And maybe she’d remember something about Jo that he could check out for Sam.
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“Hey, I’m doing it for Sam.”
She was quiet a moment, then rose.
“Thank you,” April said primly.
He knew she didn’t want to accept his offer. She must want to find her parents badly to put aside her animosity and agree to his help.
“Let’s get a cup of coffee, start over and see where we begin the great parent search,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. He grabbed the folder and headed for the door.
A few moments later they were seated in a quiet corner of Ruby’s Café, Jo’s folder in front of Jack. Coffee had been ordered. He glanced around the room.
“People are staring,” April said, her eyes on the folder.
“You’re a beautiful woman. They probably like looking at you.” He would, if he didn’t feel she was the type to trade on her looks. There was a certain something about her—an air of vulnerability—that had him looking despite his efforts not to.
When the coffee arrived, Jack pulled out a small notebook and tiny pencil. He never went anywhere without it.
“Do we start with Jo?” she asked, looking at the notebook.
“No, I’ll check out the folder later. See what Sam’s done. Between his searches and the detective Maddie hired, I bet they’ve covered all bases. You and Eliza can help by reminiscing to see if you can remember anywhere Jo really wanted to see. Sometimes when life gets too hard, people will bolt for a special place—even if they’ve never been there—in hopes it’ll prove to be the one place on earth that’s right for them.”
“New Orleans was the only place we ever talked about. We couldn’t wait to get there when we were teenagers.”
“Yet neither you nor Eliza settled there after leaving school.”
“True. Do you think there’s a chance Jo did?”
“Sam said he checked the neighboring states. Dead end.”
April sipped her coffee, studying Jack.
“Tell me all the facts you know about yourself,” he said.
“Maddie told me I was abandoned and she stepped in to act as foster mother. I was born twenty-seven years ago on May seventeenth. At least I always thought I was, until you put that doubt in my head.”
“You have a birth certificate, you said.”
She nodded. “A delayed registration they called it. I can dig it up if you need to see it. It doesn’t give much information beyond my date of birth. No parents listed.”
“Born where?”
“The certificate says Maraville.”
He tossed his pencil down. “Too easy. If you were born here in town, we’d be able to locate your parents in no time. Even if the day is wrong, the month has to be close. We could check all live births from April through June of that year and see who’s unaccounted for. Are you sure you were born here?”
“No. I told you it was a delayed birth certificate. Filled out when I was nineteen. Social Services filed it when I needed one for a passport.”
“First stop, then, Social Services.”
“I tried to get them to help me when I was a teenager here,” she said. She took another sip of her coffee. “Dead end.”
For a moment he saw that vulnerability again. It bothered him, since it didn’t fit the mold he’d assigned her. Maybe he needed to do some more digging around to find out exactly who April Jeffries was.
“First of all, I doubt they’d talk to a minor.”
“They acted like they never gave out any information. I was totally stonewalled.”
“I have a different technique,” he said smugly.
“I can hardly wait to see the mighty reporter in action.” She fiddled with her cup, turning it around on the saucer. “How long are you staying in Maraville?”
He shrugged. “Depends on how fast my foot heals.”
“What happened?”
“Land mine.”
“Ouch. You’re lucky it wasn’t blown off.”
He saw the sympathy in her expression and frowned. He didn’t want pity.
“I didn’t step on it, I was just a bystander. But it did enough damage.”
“You’ll be fine again, right?”
“Yeah, as soon as it heals.” He hoped to God that was true.
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT ARE THE CHANCES the people we’ll talk to at Social Services will just give me my file?” April asked. “They refused before. Maybe if Maddie had pushed, they might have done more, but she wasn’t willing to.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he asked her about the decision to remove the girls from Maddie’s care. She explained the matter had been handled quickly, with no input from the three of them. One day they were living with Maddie, the next they were in different homes.
“Odd,” he said.
“Why?”
“You girls had been together for years, raised as sisters essentially. I’d think the court would initially try to place you together. Or if not, at least make sure you were able to maintain contact. It was cruel to make you sever all ties. Sam said the investigation was handled poorly. Now I’m wondering if there was more involved.”
“Like a conspiracy?” She half smiled. “I doubt it. We were three foster kids. There aren’t a lot of foster families in Maraville, or there weren’t back then, and not many people are willing to take on three teenagers. Probably the easiest thing to do was send us to the first homes available, which just happened to be in different towns.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But why not tell you where the other girls were sent? Eliza said you couldn’t contact each other. There was nothing in the file about that, according to Sam. Maybe Social Services will give us some information.”
“If there was some hidden agenda, do you think they’ll tell us at this late date?”
“Good point.” He was quiet for a moment. April could almost see his mind turning over all possibilities.
“Anyone there know you personally?” he asked.
“I haven’t had any contact since my case was transferred to Jackson years ago. Maybe they have new staff.”
“Unlikely in this town. Seems to me the only chance for advancement comes when someone dies.”
“So maybe Mrs. Savalak died. She looked a hundred and three when she was my caseworker. Even older than Maddie.”
“What do you mean?”
April explained that she and the others had thought Maddie’s ideas old-fashioned and considered her ancient. “In retrospect, I think she just had high standards and tried to instill them in all of us,” she said slowly.
“Would Maddie be any help to us?”
“I doubt it. If she could talk, she might tell us how she came to get me, but unless you can word all your questions to take yes or no answers, we’re out of luck. Besides, I tried to find out more when I was a child, and she wasn’t any help then.”
“Asking yes/no questions is easy enough to do. But let’s see what else we can find out first. You finished?”
“Just about.” She drained her coffee cup. “What about Jo?”
“I’ll see if there’s anything else I can come up with, but if people don’t want to be found, they usually aren’t.”
“Why wouldn’t she want to be found? I’ll bet she’d like to know Eliza and I are looking for her.”
